Kimi Raikkonen won the Hungarian Grand Prix for McLaren Mercedes by over half a minute from Michael Schumacher's Ferrari with Ralf Schumacher pressurising his brother and securing his first podium position since joining the Toyota team. While Raikkonen's win seems an easy one on paper, he was made to work for his fourth win of the season.
The outcome of the race was somewhat determined by a rather chaotic start of the race that saw Michael Schumacher lead away from his Pole Position with Raikkonen moving up from fourth on the grid to shadow the Ferrari driver. Further behind, Fernando Alonso promised an aggressive start and duly delivered as he dove down the inside of Ralf Schumacher into the first turn. It was an over optimistic move and the Championship leader lost his front wing and was never in contention for points again.
Michael Schumacher pushed hard at the front but the pace of Raikkonen and the MP4-20 was too much with Raikkonen sweeping past after the second round of pitstops. Juan Pablo Montoya, running longer stints was leading at the time on the pit stop strategy but McLaren reliability issues soon saw him cruising to the pits and out of the race.
With Montoya out of the race, Raikkonen was in clear air and simply pulled out a half minute advantage over Schumacher in the second half of the arce to take the victory. With Alonso finishing a distant 11th, Raikkonen has given himself a glimmer of hope in terms of the Championship as he now trails the Renault driver by 26 points with six races remaining.
Ralf Schumacher drove by far his best race of the season for Toyota, gaining track position over team-mate Jarno Trulli during the early pitstops and then drove a strong race to pressure Michael Schumacher for second position and claim his first Toyota podium.
Jarno Trulli also drove a solid race for Toyota. The opening seconds of the 70-lap race saw Rubens Barrichello run into the back of his TF105 under braking for the first turn. From that point, Trulli did not have the pace to challenge the front runners but drove a clean race to finish in a solid fourth position.
Jenson Button had a low-key race for BAR Honda, the team admitting that the tyre compound choice made on Friday was not the right one for the race. Button finished in fifth position, five seconds behind Trulli on a two stop strategy compares to the three stops of those ahead.
In complete contrast to the German Grand Prix last Sunday, BMW Williams qualified both Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber with a heavy fuel load. Both drivers stayed out longer than their immediate rivals before making just two stops, earning sixth and seventh positions respectively. Takuma Sato finished in eighth position and picked up his first point of the season in his BAR Honda.
Over at Renault, the race was a disaster. Fernando Alonso eliminated himself from contention seconds into the race while Giancarlo Fisichella had high speed trips through the gravel trap on the outside of turn two and finished out of the points in ninth position. A pitstop on the last lap for a splash of fuel ended any dreams of points. Alonso pushed hard after his first lap error, but was never able to pass the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello who also pitted for a new front wing on lap one. Barrichello finished in tenth with Alonso 11th.
Narain Karthikeyan finished in 12th position in his Jordan Toyota three laps down and a lap ahead of team-mate Tiago Monteiro who was off the pace from the very start of the race in his EJ15.
Felipe Massa pitted with a mechanical problem mid-race. Sauber Petronas sent the Brazilian back out after a lengthy stop and he was able to finish 14th. Minardi has problems for both Albers and Doornbos with the former able to resume after a lengthy stop before pulling in again, while the latter stopped out on track with a hydraulics failure before half distance.
Jacques Villeneuve was unable to finish the race in his Sauber. It was a difficult weekend for the Swiss-based team as they lacked pace and chassis balance throughout.
Over at Red Bull Racing, it was a short day at the office for both Christian Klien and David Coulthard. Heading to turn one on lap one, Klien was on the outside of one of Jacques Villeneuve. The wheel of the Sauber and Red Bull touched and Klien was flipped over and out of the race. David Coulthard meanwhile continued his first lap until striking the front wing shed from Alonso's Renault. The impact was hard and sent Coulthard crashing out of the race.
The Formula One circus now reconvenes for the inaugural Turkish Grand Prix in three weeks time. This gives both race winner Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso plenty of time to prepare for the final run of races towards the World Championship.